Getting the most out of your plants

What’s been happening at Abbeywood

Gardening, to us, is all about being frugal and getting the most out of our plants in every way possible, whether that be through harvesting seeds to sow on for next year or taking cuttings of our favourites to grow on into the next flowering season.

Here at Abbeywood, we have been busy dividing up our perennials over the past couple of weeks to increase our stocks and we recommend all you keen gardeners should jump aboard and get stuck in! So firstly, there are three things we want to consider;

• Versatility Is this plant able to be planted in a number of borders providing consistency throughout the garden.

• Impact Will this plant highlight other plants around it or be a feature in its own right.

• Aesthetics Focusing on colours, tones, and structures creating relaxing atmospheres to exciting structural displays.

One of the plants we were keen to divide was the attractive perennial Veronica ‘Atomic Blue Ray’.

Here are a couple more varieties:

 

We dug up this little beauty attempting to lift a good sized root ball, taking care to retain as much as the root structure as possible.

 

Once we have a decent sized clump and shook off unwanted excess soil we took a sharp serrated knife and carefully cut out four smaller sections.

 

 

We now have four plants from one! After this, we cleaned out some used pots and placed our fresh new divisions in using a standard multipurpose compost and perlite just to aid with drainage.

Once our divisions were potted up and firmed in we cut the stems down to around 2 inches from their base. We do this so our new plants will focus on developing strong roots and to minimise transpiration through developed foliage.

 

 

When we have finished dividing our plants we store them in our polytunnel to develop into strong, healthy plants, which should be ready to plant out into our borders next year in Spring.

 

 

Hopefully, we have inspired you eager gardeners out there to take divisions and build up your stock for free like us! Follow me, Anth, to see what else is happening at Abbeywood.